The present invention relates to structural cardboard runners, and pallets and shipping articles for material handling. The present invention relates especially to a pallet including cardboard runners, but is not limited to only runners, nor only pallets.
Traditional wood pallets are expensive to purchase and maintain. Further, they are not always easily disposed of. In particular, disposal of wood pallets can be problematic in large cities where downtown is congested, because trucks cannot wait at drop off sites. Instead, the trucks must make a return trip (i.e., an “empty run”) to the drop off site through traffic and congestion to pick up empty pallets, wasting considerable time and adding substantially to shipping expense.
Cardboard has been used to make pallets and runners of pallets. However, known pallets that incorporate cardboard often lack durability and strength. Further, cardboard runners are problematic because runners experience “horizontal abuse” from fork truck tines as they engage and disengage a pallet to move and/or position the pallets on storage racks, and further experience “vertical abuse” as heavy packages put downward pressure on the runner against uneven ground support and/or storage racks and/or wet surfaces.